Aids: Nonwhites Must Fight Back

June 14, 1987|By Clarence Page.

If I told you I could unleash a deadly ``bias virus`` that could kill blacks and Hispanics at three times the rate of whites, what would you do?

Your complexion might determine your conviction. If you were a leader of the Ku Klux Klan or some similar numbskull organization, you might jump for joy and try to order a gallon. If you were a black or Hispanic community leader, you might angrily demand FBI investigations, congressional hearings and my immediate arrest.

But it is too late. The disease already is released. It is called AIDS and while there has been a lot of talking about it lately, black and Hispanics leaders have been strangely silent, even though the racial bias of the AIDS epidemic borders on the genocidal.

Blacks and Hispanics, who make up 11 and 8 percent of the population, respectively, account for 25 and 14 percent of AIDS patients, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

A black woman is 13 times more likely to contract the disease than is a white woman, and a Hispanic woman is 11 times more likely.

And of the infants who have been born with AIDS, more than nine out of 10 are nonwhite.

``AIDS poses special problems for blacks because of the distinct way it is transmitted within the black community,`` says Dr. Jacqueline Bowles of the federal Office of Minority Health.

The distinct difference is drugs. Homosexual men account for two-thirds of the country`s AIDS cases, but only about half of black and Hispanic AIDS victims. Almost all of the rest are in the second-largest AIDS risk group:

intravenous drug users who share their needles.

Four out of five drug users with AIDS are black or Hispanic, according to government figures, and drug users provide the most common route of transmission for AIDS into the nonhomosexual population, where it reaches unsuspecting spouses, lovers and, through infected mothers, unborn infants.

Dr. Wayne Greaves, chief of infectious diseases at Howard University Hospital, fears the high incidence of infection among black women and children could actually limit the growth of America`s black population, leading to

``zero population growth for blacks.``

Yet black or Hispanic leaders have not jumped out in front to lead the fight against this deadly invasion.

One reason: Blacks and Hispanics, in spite of the liberal political leaders they elect, can be just as conservative as Jerry Falwell in their view of gays and lesbians.

And as for drugs, blacks and Hispanics are by far the leading victims of black and Hispanic needle users who commit crimes to support their habits. Many would just as soon let the junkies die.

Then there is the deep cultural resistance in many black and Hispanic households to learning the information needed to protect themselves. Women traditionally dare not show much knowledge of the technicalities of sex or their virtue may be questioned.

But black and Hispanic community leaders should launch a counterattack

--if only to prevent more AIDS-infected babies.

As better-off folks arm themselves with information and take steps to avoid this terrible disease, AIDS will infect fewer of the better-off, well-informed, educated, employed and white, and it will kill more of the poor, uninformed, uneducated, unemployed and nonwhite.

Government figures show that the rate of new AIDS cases among gays already has begun to drop. Yet authorities say intravenous drug users, who by their nature resist change and dwell outside traditional information streams, pose a continuing threat.

Those of us who are black or Hispanic cannot wait for whites to save us. It is only human nature for those who are the least affected by a problem to care the least about it.

Just as mainstream America moved slowly against drug trafficking until the white middle-class children of suburbia came down with habits, we cannot expect much action on AIDS if it becomes a disease limited mostly to the ghetto.

What can be done? Plenty. For starters, crack down on drug traffic and inform the uninformed. Support police crackdowns on traffickers, users and

``dope houses.`` Intervene in the lives of users. Hold neighborhood workshops, teach-ins and one-on-one counseling through churches and clinics. Help young people to say ``No.``

Encourage frank and responsible media messages, including talk shows,

``telenovelas`` (Hispanic soap operas) and public service announcements with attention-getting celebrities. Lobby politicians to fund sound public health policies, like education and counseling, and fewer crowd-pleasing but ultimately unproductive sideshows, like mandatory testing.

AIDS is an equal opportunity disease. Black and Hispanic community leaders must fight back, or they may find themselves with a lot fewer people to lead.